crevasse
Americannoun
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crevasses
plural
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a fissure, or deep cleft, in glacial ice, the earth's surface, etc.
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a breach in an embankment or levee.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a deep crack or fissure, esp in the ice of a glacier
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a break in a river embankment
verb
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A deep fissure in a glacier or other body of ice. Crevasses are usually caused by differential movement of parts of the ice over an uneven topography.
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A large, deep fissure in the Earth caused by an earthquake.
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A wide crack or breach in the bank of a river. Crevasses usually form during floods.
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◆ The sediments that spill out through the crevasse and fan out along the external margin of the river's bank form a crevasse splay deposit.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of crevasse
1805–15, < French; see crevice
Compare meaning
How does crevasse compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
If you're heading to the North Pole by sled, watch out you don't fall into a crevasse — a deep fissure or crack in the snow or ice. Similar to the term "crevice," though "crevice" usually refers to a fissure in a rock face. Neither one is a nice place to get stuck. The word crevasse, as its spelling suggests, comes from an old French word, the verb crevare, meaning "to burst or break," and indicating how a crevasse was formed in the first place. The reason for the difference in the two terms, crevasse and crevice, was originally to indicate a difference in size: in general a crevasse is much larger than a crevice, which can often be extremely small.
Vocabulary lists containing crevasse
Geological Features
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Grendel
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The Golden Compass
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He made his way down slowly, only to fall into a crevasse, according to two people who spoke to him about his ordeal.
From BBC ● Jun. 10, 2026
The dragon will give Mae the flower, but first she must rescue his son, which has fallen down a crevasse.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2025
To Byatt, maternal mental health is not a gap but a crevasse.
From Salon ● Sep. 10, 2024
He described a near-death plunge into a crevasse when he failed to detect it beneath a blanket of snow.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 22, 2024
The next day Hall buried his friend in a crevasse.
From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer
Hikes to the top of Mount Cook, which towers over the Southern Alps running the length of the South Island, are difficult even for experienced climbers because of large crevasses and unpredictable weather.
From BBC ● Nov. 24, 2025
There’s a point being made there: His wrinkles and crevasses echo the landscape, which has also been shaped by time and forces of nature.
From New York Times ● May 24, 2024
It’s best known for wide spine-tingling crevasses spanned by flimsy-looking aluminum ladders lashed together with rope.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 29, 2024
Yet for decades, due to the risk of avalanches and hidden snow-lined crevasses, no research expedition had ever been able to reach the peak of Nevado Huascarán to collect these ancient records.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 15, 2023
His tracks led toward the east buttress of Denali, straight through a labyrinth of giant crevasses, evidence that he had made no apparent effort to circumvent obvious hazards.
From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
Looking out over those crevassed hills, with outcroppings of dark rock showing through the yellow grass, I felt that this spontaneous spirit of mercantilism was at the heart of the Silk Road.
From New York Times ● May 11, 2020
Cons: Because it’s fractured and crevassed, Hynek says it would likely be necessary to land off the glacier and traverse over to it to bring the ice and water back to the astronauts’ habitation module.
From Forbes ● Dec. 9, 2014
Climbers on other teams stepped in to shield Moro and his colleagues, who, spitting blood, packed up their essential gear and fled, taking a dangerous, highly crevassed back route down the mountain.
From Newsweek ● May 2, 2013
That face, a crevassed landscape that suggests sorrow and history, has the granitic grandeur of W. H. Auden in his later life.
From New York Times ● Dec. 9, 2011
“But if we get out of the crevassed area...”
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
We also see that a slight curvature in the valley, by throwing an additional strain upon one half of the glacier, produces an augmented crevassing of that side.
From The Glaciers of the Alps Being a narrative of excursions and ascents, etc. by John Tyndall
Diagram illustrating the crevassing of Convex Sides of glacier.
From The Glaciers of the Alps Being a narrative of excursions and ascents, etc. by John Tyndall
But the measurement of the foregoing three lines shows that this cannot be the true cause of the crevassing.
From The Glaciers of the Alps Being a narrative of excursions and ascents, etc. by John Tyndall
And see how beautifully these simple principles enable us to account for the remarkable crevassing of the eastern side of the Mer de Glace.
From The Glaciers of the Alps Being a narrative of excursions and ascents, etc. by John Tyndall
Diagram illustrating the crevassing of Convex Sides of glacier323 29.
From The Glaciers of the Alps Being a narrative of excursions and ascents, etc. by John Tyndall
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
